Let's hope Hollywood has the imagination to make good use of the
Oscar-nominated actor

The Somali American actor Barkhad Abdi, who left war-torn Mogadishu when he was six, was working as a chauffeur in Minneapolis before he secured his first-ever acting job - his role in the film Captain Phillips, starring Tom Hanks as a US captain whose ship is hijacked. Abdi played the leader of a Somali pirate gang with a potent mixture of recklessness and desperation that ensured that, on screen, he became the equal of Hanks, the experienced Hollywood star. In one way, the unlikely equivalence fitted the plot, in which the seasoned captain suddenly found himself sharing the ship with a gun-wielding young Somali who told him: “I’m the captain now.”

Abdi was Oscar-nominated for the role. He didn’t win, although he did take home a Bafta for Best Supporting Actor. Now it turns out that Abdi – who was paid $65,000 (£38,810) to play the part two years ago – is broke. While in LA to promote the film, according to The New Yorker, he borrows his clothes for functions, and has use of a studio car only for official publicity events.

It’s a curious juxtaposition of enormous success and continuing uncertainty, but then, Abdi is still at the beginning of his acting career, and is said to be in negotiations for a new role as the South African runner Willie Mtolo.

I hope Hollywood has the imagination to make good use of him; cinema needs character actors who bring the edge of life experience to the screen, and some of the most memorable screen presences – from Gene Kelly to Al Pacino – have come from blue-collar backgrounds.

The quality that draws an audience to watch someone might be indefinable, but you’ve either got it or you haven’t. And Abdi has it.